桑坦德二季度净利润35亿欧元，TSB整合费用压低表观利润

Santander profits curbed by TSB restructuring costs
Santander said restructuring costs relating to its takeover of UK bank TSB had weighed on its bottom line as it reported a small rise in quarterly profits.
The Spanish lender reported net income of €3.5bn between April and June, a rise of 3 per cent on the same period last year, after taking a €250mn restructuring charge linked to the integration of the British high street bank.
Stripping out the restructuring costs, the group’s underlying profit rose 17 per cent to €3.8bn during the period, driven by higher fee and lending income.
The £2.65bn acquisition of TSB, which was completed in April, is one of two significant deals pursued by executive chair Ana Botín in the past year as part of a plan to refocus the Spanish group on a handful of “core markets”.
Santander also struck a $12.2bn deal to buy US regional lender Webster Financial earlier this year.
“The successful completion of the TSB acquisition in the UK marks another important milestone in the execution of our strategy,” Botín said on Wednesday. “It strengthens our position in one of our core markets, adding scale, high-quality deposits and a low-risk mortgage portfolio.”
While the TSB integration weighed on quarterly profit, Santander said it still expected the deal to generate at least £400mn in annual cost savings, equivalent to shedding about 55 per cent of TSB’s cost base.
Santander executives have discussed extracting further costs once the integration is complete, which could amount to an additional £100mn after 2028, the FT previously reported.
Retail banks typically use acquisitions to cut costs by closing branches, cutting duplicate jobs and combining IT systems. TSB operated about 175 branches across the UK.
The Spanish bank is also preparing to drop the TSB brand – which has existed for more than 200 years – and run the combined business as Santander UK once the two lenders have been integrated.
The group’s performance was boosted during the second quarter by a 7 per cent rise in net interest income — a key measure of lending profitability — and a 9 per cent jump in net fee income.
The Spanish bank has also embarked on a significant expansion of its corporate and investment bank in recent years under Botín, recruiting aggressively in the US as it seeks to build a larger fee-generating business less dependent on interest rates.
The division brought in revenues of €4.8bn during the first six months of the year, a 16 per cent increase on the same period last year.
Santander’s loan-loss provisions jumped 13 per cent during the quarter to €3.3bn, which it said mainly reflected “broader market trends in Argentina”.
After years of lacklustre share price performance, Santander has benefited from higher interest rates, which have lifted profitability and helped propel it to become the Eurozone’s most valuable listed lender.